HERD TESTING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1367, 19 February 1912, Page 8

HERD TESTING.

OITON'ENTS' CNIQIT. OU.IKCTIOX

Disclosing the question of what progress has been made in herd-kiting in Tai'anaki. the Stratford correspondent of the "News" says:"1 am afraid there i« still a great deal of prejudice against the adoption of the system by the dairy-fanner.-, for whal reason it is hard lo say. Al Mime factories testing was taken up by the directors; at. others by the daily division of the Agiicultural Department. Makers seem to have gone along similarly for a lime, when fiVl one supplier and then another would appear lo have taken fright, at some imaginary (rap and 'stopped supplies.' This is to be regretted for (hose who have gone in for systematic re-ting, as well as almost evniy factory manager I have conversed with on the subject, are loud in their praises of the practice, and are satisfied that il affords the only safe means of telling tho useless from (he profitable animals in a herd. 1 have heard some most remarkable realms advanced by dairy farmers against testing their herds, one ol the most unique being that the Government has instituted the system in order to an-ei-tain (he earning capacity of individual herds, and (lien up will go the taxes. 'This is too utterly absurd, but it onlv goes to show what stumbling blacks tlie dairy-farmer himself places in the path of progress."